WeChat rolls out ‘mini programs,’ plus McDonald’s sells its China business and more

WeChat rolls out ‘mini programs’ in a bid to kill off apps / Tech in AsiaWith more than 840 million active users, China’s top messaging and social media app WeChat launched “mini programs” on Monday. Tencent, the company that operates WeChat, “chose to use “mini programs” because Apple would not permit the use of the word “app.” The programs include a collection of cloud-based apps that users can access without downloading new software, including many popular services such as Didi, the ride-sharing service similar to Uber. The programs “pose a challenge to Apple’s App Store and to the array of Android app stores popular in China,” and “could also pull people away from Baidu and other search engines,” according to Tech in Asia.

McDonald’s sells control of China business to Citic, Carlyle / BloombergMcDonald’s agreed to sell 80 percent of the stake in its China and Hong Kong operations to Chinese state-backed enterprise Citic and U.S. private-equity firm Carlyle Group for about $1.7 billion, according to a statement Monday. “Citic and Carlyle’s resources will allow McDonald’s to expand rapidly and refurbish old restaurants, which is expensive to do…Given that McDonald’s lags behind KFC in terms of store count in China, we can expect them to expand aggressively and invest heavily,” according to Ben Cavender, a Shanghai-based analyst at China Market Research Group.

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Outside observers typically view China’s media as utterly shackled by the bonds of censorship, unable to critique the government or speak truth to power in any meaningful sense. In part, this is true — censorship and other pressures do create “no-go” zones for journalists in China, as well as gray zones that sometimes rapidly turn […]

Michael Yamashita’s Photo of the Day

Rabbits in colorful cages for sale at a temple fair near Lianhuachi Park in Beijing in 2010 during the Spring Festival celebration. At these fairs, which are popular during this time of year, vendors sell food and sometimes pets.